Spring Launch

Posted on September 29th, 2011 by Lucy Windmill

Spring was launched in late 2011. The work of Spring will explore the state of tech-enabled philanthropy in the UK, and provide practical insight into how digital technology can support giving and other forms of contribution into the future.

We know that Online Giving continues to grow very fast, in keeping with the overall migration of individual giving toward online and technology. But through the eyes of a charity finance director, the overall impact on online giving remains relatively small: the figures range from 3.7% to 5% of all donations.

Personally, I believe this is an underestimate, but even if we agree that social technologies have probably not increased overall levels of giving, it is certainly driving more subtle changes in how people give and where the power lies. People are changing faster than institutions, foundations, charities, or government. We are ill prepared for what is coming.

We want to help, and want to provide a focus around which communities of interest can emerge around this broad topic and specific technologies.

The first aim of Spring is to learn from how you currently work with technology to support giving, so we encourage you to submit blogs and thought pieces so we can build our research from these shared insights.

Watch this space, and visit http://www.spring-giving.org.uk

Steve Bridger, Director, Spring

Steve helps some of the UK’s biggest charities trust more of their own people to build relationships online that support collaboration, transparency, and philanthropy. He is an award-winning blogger, advises a number of start-ups in the charity sector, and is a contributor to several reports on online fundraising. Two decades ago Steve managed a Blue Peter Appeal that raised more than £1m for Oxfam GB. Steve is leading our Spring programme – established to promote technology-enabled giving and philanthropy as part of our response to the Giving White Paper published in May 2011.

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